Human rights monitor: Independent probe needed on al-Shifa

Summary:

• Israeli strikes continue across Gaza, with the enclave under a communications blackout as the main telecommunications provider ran out of fuel for its generators.
• Ashraf al-Qudra, the spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza, says "thousands of women, children, sick and wounded are in danger of death" as Israel continues its raid on al-Shifa for a third night, in an attempt to find an elusive Hamas command and control centre it has long claimed is located there.
• Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza "completely out of service", the director tells Al Jazeera, even as it grapples with more patients who have been unable to get medical care at al-Shifa.
• At least 11,470 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, but the figure has not been updated for days due to the collapse of the health system amid Israel's attacks. In Israel, the official death toll from Hamas's attacks stands at more than 1,200.

2:43pm

Human rights monitor: Independent probe needed on al-Shifa

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has called for an independent, international investigation into "Israel's absurd claims that Palestinian groups were using Al-Shifa Medical Complex and other hospitals in the Gaza Strip for military purposes".

"The absence of any neutral international party's involvement in the Israeli military raids and searches of Al-Shifa Medical Complex and other hospitals in the Strip raises widespread doubts about the Israeli narrative," it said in a statement, reports Al Jazeera.

"According to Euro-Med Monitor, Israel needs to offer the outside world more than a few rifles and other armaments to justify its attacks on Gaza's hospitals and ill and injured civilians."

2:02pm

Netanyahu says 'strong indications' Israeli hostages were at Al-Shifa

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken to CBS Evening News in the US, telling the channel there were "strong indications" that Israeli hostages were being held at the Al-Shifa hospital and this was "one of the reasons we entered". BBC reports.

Netanyahu said there were no hostages at the hospital when forces entered the hospital on Wednesday, claiming: "If there were [hostages], they were taken out"

Israel says it has further intelligence about those being held, but Netanyahu said: "the less I say about it, the better". Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of housing a major base underneath the Al-Shifa hospital - which Hamas denies. Netanyahu did not elaborate on what information Israel had to suggest that hostages were being held at Al-Shifa.

1:04pm

Nature of Ibn Sina Hospital raid is 'incredible'

Israeli forces turned up at Ibn Sina Hospital, one of the biggest in the occupied West Bank. They turned up in a raid where they asked medical staff to put their hands up and evacuate the hospital, reports Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera reporter said "those inside refused. But there were some outside that complied and you may have seen, at least, in that video, some of those medical staff wearing their medical uniforms with their hands up. They were interrogated for an hour and then released".

12:41pm

Israeli army says recovered remains of soldier hostage

Israel's army said Friday it had recovered the remains of a woman soldier held hostage by Hamas militants, whose death the military had announced earlier in the week, reports AFP.

"The body of the soldier Noa Marciano... has been extracted" by fellow troops "from a structure adjacent to Al-Shifa hospital" in the Gaza Strip, an army statement said, after confirming earlier in the week the death of Marciano, 19, who Hamas militants said had been killed in an Israeli bombardment.

12:33pm

Malaysia's Mahathir says Gaza medical facility his foundation established has been destroyed

Malaysia's former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has said that a medical facility in Gaza established by his foundation has been destroyed by Israeli bombing, reports Al Jazeera.

Mahathir, who led Malaysia from 1981-2003 and again from 2018-2020, said on Friday that he was "perturbed" to learn that the Dr Siti Hasmah and Enaya Physiotherapy Centre in Khan Younis, southern Gaza had been destroyed earlier this month. The former Malaysian leader said his Perdana Global Peace Foundation had helped to establish the facility, which opened in 2019.

"The location of the centre in Khan Younis, in the South of Gaza, was of no consequence to the Zionist Israeli regime," Mahathir said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

"Despite having said earlier that they would not target the south, it proved to be lip service. The attacks is now turning into an operation of mass murdering Palestinian civilians and non-combatants. It is not a war between militaries, but a genocide by the Israeli military to rid Gaza of its Palestinian population. The bombings of hospitals and residences, and now a physiotherapy centre, proved that Israel is targeting these centres intentionally and wilfully."

10:50am

Israeli police kill three Palestinians in West Bank

Three Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli soldiers on Thursday after opening fire at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. An Israeli soldier was killed and several others were wounded in the attack, according to Israeli officials. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. Al Jazeera reports.

Al Jazeera's Zein Basravi, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said such attacks using small arms and explosives have increased in recent weeks amid mounting anger over civilian deaths in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank.

10:22am

Canada's Trudeau, Australia's Albanese discuss situation in the Middle East

In a social media post on X, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that he discussed the current situation in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank with his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in San Francisco, reports Al Jazeera.

Trudeau has been under pressure by the Canadian electorate to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Earlier this week, Albanese was quoted as saying that many in the Muslim and Palestinian communities "feel hurt, believing there has been less emphasis on Palestinian lives," but his government has also resisted from calling a ceasefire in Gaza.

9:55am

Hostage death

The body of 65-year-old Yehudit Weiss, who was abducted by Hamas during its attacks on 7 October, has been found by Israeli forces in a structure close to Gaza's largest hospital, reports BBC.

Yehudit Weiss was recovering from breast cancer when she was taken from kibbutz Be'eri, according to campaigners. Her husband, Shmuel, was killed by Hamas gunmen.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said 65-year-old Yehudit Weiss was discovered in a house near Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. It said that her family had been informed, and her body would be returned to Israel.

Ms Weiss was kidnapped from her home in Be'eri near the Gaza border. She had been recovering from breast cancer when Hamas launched its deadly attack on 7 October, but was without her medication when she was taken, according to the Bring Them Home Now group.

Ms Weiss worked in her kibbutz's kindergartens, managed the dining room and specialised in nursing before she retired, the group said.

9:25am

Israeli forces 'demand' immediate evacuation of hospital in Jenin

Israeli forces arrested two paramedics and ordered the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin evacuated, as it launched the latest raid in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.

Sources told Wafa that Israeli forces surrounded the hospital from all sides, searched ambulances and demanded via loudspeakers that the hospital be evacuated, reports Al-Jazeera.

Paramedics were ordered to leave the medical facility with their hands raised and were searched in the hospital's courtyard.

9:10am

Radiology dept damaged as Israelis raid al-Shifa hospital for second day: UN

Israeli soldiers backed by tanks raided al-Shifa Hospital for a second consecutive day on Thursday, damaging the radiology department and removing several corpses from the medical facility, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) says in its latest Gaza situation report.

Heavy air attacks, artillery shelling and ground fighting continued over the  24-hour reporting period from Wednesday to Thursday afternoon, the UN said, with a reported 50 people killed on Wednesday in an Israeli air strike in the vicinity of a mosque during evening prayers in Gaza City's Sabra neighbourhood.

"Intense" Israeli strikes also took place in southern Gaza where Palestinians in the north of the strip were ordered by Israeli forces to flee to escape fighting ahead of Israel's ground invasion of the enclave.

8:55am

120 Russian nationals evacuated from Gaza arrive in Moscow

The Russian publication Kommersant quoted the ministry of emergency situations, EMERCOM, as saying that a special Ilyushin-76 flight transported the Russian citizens from Cairo to the Russian capital, reports Al-Jazeera.

They were the third group of Russians evacuated from Gaza.

At least 97 people remain in temporary accommodation centres in Moscow, including 39 children.

8am

Jordanian officials denounce Israeli strike on field hospital in Gaza

Senior Jordanian officials have condemned what they called Israel's "cowardly act" following its strike on a Jordanian field hospital in Gaza that left at least seven of its staff injured.

In a statement published in The Jordanian Times, Senate President Faisal Fayez urged the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israeli "war criminals", while condemning Israel's justifications for its "criminal act".

Jordanian Minister of Government Communications Muhannad Mubaidin, was also quoted by the publication as saying that Israel carried out the attack because it is "upset" with Jordan's diplomatic efforts at the UN to end the conflict.

"What is happening in Gaza is more than a war crime; it is a genocide and legitimisation of Israeli power and arrogance, resulting in the complete destruction of all vital facilities, homes, mosques and churches. Whoever bombs a church or a mosque can easily bomb a hospital," he said.

7:25am

Biden told Israel's war on Gaza undermines US 'credibility' around the world

The Elders – a grouping of former global leaders working towards peace and human rights – sent an open letter to President Biden saying that Israel's destruction of Gaza and killing of civilians put "US credibility and interests across the world" at stake.

"For too long the world has spoken of a two-state solution while allowing Israel to build a one-state reality," said the group, which was founded by Nelson Mandela and is currently headed by Mary Robinson, former UN high commissioner for human rights.

"Israeli policies of expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank, and normalising relations with Arab countries while bypassing the Palestinians, have not made Israelis safe. Successive US governments have been complicit in these failures," the letter states.

"The conflict must be resolved, permanently, through negotiation", the group said, calling for a "serious peace plan" and "lasting political solution" to end the Israel-Palestine conflict.

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English-------- [ All ] --------AfrikaansAlbanianAmharicArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBengaliBosnianBulgarianCatalanCebuanoChichewaChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CorsicanCroatianCzechDanishDutchEnglishEsperantoEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchFrisianGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekGujaratiHaitian CreoleHausaHawaiianHebrewHindiHmongHungarianIcelandicIgboIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseJavaneseKannadaKazakhKhmerKoreanKurdish (Kurmanji)Kurdish (Sorani)KyrgyzLaoLatinLatvianLithuanianLuxembourgishMacedonianMalagasyMalayMalayalamMalteseMaoriMarathiMongolianMyanmar (Burmese)NepaliNorwegianPashtoPersianPolishPortuguesePunjabiRomanianRussianSamoanScots GaelicSerbianSesothoShonaSindhiSinhalaSlovakSlovenianSomaliSpanishSundaneseSwahiliSwedishTajikTamilTatarTeluguThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduUzbekVietnameseWelshXhosaYiddishYorubaZulu  

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